Sir,
Please refer to the letter titled”Farmers Plight” DE on May 19,2018 wherein C.M.Sharma has highlighted the problems of farmers in our state. I do agree with the author that our farmers are suffering badly for want of a number of basic facilities. It is also true that the young generation of our farming community is losing interest in profession of farming due to low turnover from this profession.
In this context, I would like to add that the functioning of the state agriculture department is also responsible for the miserable condition of our farmers. There is a big mismanagement in this department.It is well known to all concerned that there is a big army of agricultural officers and workers in this department who are very little known to the farmers. The well known project of T&V Program launched in the year 1985 died even before implementation. The valuable assets created under this project have gone wasted. A number of buildings including the offices, stores and residential quarters of the field staff were never taken over by the department.The field staff never bothered to remain available to the farmers even once in a month.They always remained demanding higher pay scales and promotions, but did never bother to serve the poor farming community. Consequently the things continued to deteriorate and today even the basic inputs are not made available to the farmers.
The basic field staff meant for the welfare of farmers remains in air.There no provision for storage and distribution of agricultural inputs like seed, fertilizer pesticides etc.at field level.However,it is noticed that the seed is often handed over to some local shopkeepers for further sale to the farmers which is not only wrong, but also illegal, because storing or selling of agricultural inputs without a licence is an offence under enforcement law.There is no permanent office or any headquarters of field staff.As per routine,they simply attend a meeting with SDAOs once in a month to run their home town.This is the ground reality and not a false story.
In the best interest of our farming community, it is quite desirable and also necessary to keep the village Panchayat as a basic unit of administration and establish the office headquarters of field staff at Panchayat headquarters. Hence, necessary reforms in this context should be introduced without any further delay so that the plight of our farming community is improved.
Yours etc….
O P Sharma
Bagnoti, Nowshera.
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